Levine weaves tawdry tale

Rezko jury hears of bribes, Vrdolyak ties, drug use

March 19, 2008|By Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, TRIBUNE REPORTERS

Levine said he, Cellini, Kjellander and Vrdolyak all hooked up again in another company called Compdent, which provided dental insurance to employees of the state and Chicago schools. Levine said he scouted clients for the company and the other three served as lobbyists. Levine also said he paid another bribe through Vrdolyak to secure some business for Compdent.

'Access'

Though he was a Republican and made sizable campaign donations to Ryan and other GOP candidates, Levine said he also quietly slipped money through straw donors to some Democrats over the years. Levine said he did so at the request of Vrdolyak, whose political allegiances have flip-flopped between the Democratic and Republican Parties.

Niewoehner asked Levine what he expected to get in return for his secret donations. Levine had a one-word answer: "Access."

Levine explained how he had become wealthy by carefully cultivating access to politicians and the levers of power.

He has served on three state regulatory panels spanning the administrations of two Republican governors as well as Blagojevich, a Democrat. Levine did a three-year stint on the Illinois Gaming Board but resigned because "I didn't enjoy the pressure I was getting," he said.

He remained on the other two panels, one that regulated hospital expansion and one that invested state teacher pension money, as Blagojevich came to power. The new governor reappointed him to both boards at the behest of Rezko, prosecutors say.

Levine said he first met Rezko at a dinner party just days before the 2002 election won by Blagojevich. The party was at the home of Fortunee Massuda, a Rezko business partner whom Rezko later installed on the corrupt hospital panel that prosecutors say he controlled.

At the party, Levine said, he and Rezko began talking about their opposite allegiances in the race between Blagojevich and Ryan.

Levine said the talk then turned to a valuable piece of Gold Coast property that had once been home to the Scholl School of Podiatry at State and Dearborn Streets. The school was in the process of being sold to a North Chicago medical school, now known as Rosalind Franklin University.

Levine served on that school's board of directors and had lined up a buyer willing to pay $15 million for the Scholl property. Vrdolyak was to get a $1.5 million finder's fee from the sale and had secretly agreed to kick back half of that to Levine and another member of the Rosalind Franklin board, Levine testified.

But Levine complained to his dinner partners that he was having trouble closing the sale on the Scholl building. Rezko then admitted that he was the one gumming up the works, trying to line up his own deal for the property, Levine said. Rezko promised to back off, and he quickly did, Levine said.

Prosecutors say that was the start of a corrupt relationship between the two men that fed off Levine's board positions and Rezko's clout with Blagojevich.